page_title: 20th Maine Volunteer Infantry Regiment
section_title: Gettysburg and Little Round Top
hierarchical_section_title: 20th Maine Volunteer Infantry Regiment / Combat history / Gettysburg and Little Round Top
caption_attribution_description: 20th Maine Volunteer Infantry Regiment monument, Little Round Top, Gettysburg Battlefield, Gettysburg, Adams County, Pennsylvania. taken by me,6 Sept. 2004.
context_page_description: The 20th Regiment Maine Volunteer Infantry was a volunteer regiment of the United States Army during the American Civil War, most famous for its defense of Little Round Top at the Battle of Gettysburg in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, July 1–3, 1863. The 133rd Engineer Battalion of the Maine Army National Guard and the United States Army today carries on the lineage and traditions of the 20th Maine.
context_section_description: The most notable battle was the regiment's decisive role on July 2, 1863, in the Battle of Gettysburg at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, where it was stationed on Little Round Top hill at the extreme left of the Union line. When the regiment came under heavy attack from the Confederate 15th and 47th Alabama regiments (part of the division led by Maj. Gen. John Bell Hood), the 20th Maine ran low on ammunition after one and a half hours of continuous fighting; it responded to the sight of rebel infantry forming again for yet another push up the slope at them by instead suddenly charging downhill with fixed bayonets, surprising and scattering the Confederates, thus ending the attack on the hill and the attempt to flank the hill position and move around the south end of the Federal "fishhook". The 20th Maine and the adjacent 83rd Pennsylvania together captured many men from both Alabama regiments (including Lt. Col. Michael Bulger, commander of the 47th), as well as several other men of the 4th Alabama and 4th and 5th Texas regiments of the same division. Had the 20th Maine retreated from the hill, the entire Union line would have been flanked, endangering and hurting other Union regiments in the vicinity.
caption: Regimental monument at the center of their lines on Little Round Top hill.
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